Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Dissertation

Keywords

Construction industry--Standards--Taiwan; ISO 9000 Series Standards;

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitude of Taiwanese construction companies regarding the adoption and implementation of ISO 9000. This was accomplished by conducting a survey to investigate the perceived factors affecting the intention to adopt ISO 9000 and its successful implementation.

The survey instrument was developed through the review of related literature as well as through validations. One hundred eighty (180) construction companies were randomly sampled from the 1998 Membership Directory of the National Construction Association of the Republic of China (Taiwan), which consisted of 60 Type-A, Type-B, and Type-C construction companies. In total, 62 respondents returned their questionnaires, and the return-rate was 34.44%. The data analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The statistical analysis included percentage value, frequency, mean value, ANOVA test, and Fisher's Least Significance Difference.

There were several major findings based on the analysis of data. The level of knowledge about ISO 9000 from the entire respondents ( M = 3.24) was low medium. The mean value for level of knowledge in quality assurance from all respondents was 3.41, which was medium to high. The level of implementing ISO 9000 was being low for entire population, because only 44 entities of all the 6,559 construction companies (0.67%) have adopted ISO 9000 during the time period of the survey. The 62 respondents agreed with the following statement: (a) ISO 9000 can have a contribution to quality control ( M = 3.94); (b) Both the quality assurance program and ISO 9000 system are necessary to a company's quality management system ( M = 3.87 & 3.84); and (c) ISO 9000 is important to the management system ( M = 3.81). The major reasons of not adopting ISO 9000 were (a) the time to implement ISO 9000, (b) the transition to quality assurance program, (c) the adjustment of working processes, (d) the organizational change or company structure change, and (e) the system maintenance. The five major perceived factors influencing the adoption of ISO 9000 were (a) peer competition, (b) internal initiative, (c) customers' expectations, (d) global competition, and (e) customers' pressure. The three most important factors affecting the success of implementing ISO 9000 were (a) management involvement, (b) success of employee education, and (c) employee involvement.

The major recommendations of this study were as follows: (a) the Taiwanese government and the Construction Association in Taiwan needs to more aggressively advocate the development of ISO 9000 and quality assurance programs; (b) the National Construction Association of Taiwan can standardize the documentation of implementing ISO 9000; (c) the local construction associations can also help their members in employees education; (d) the larger size construction companies or the ISO certified companies should motive or require their subcontractors to adopt ISO 9000; (e) the education about total quality management and total involvement would be necessary for the construction industry in Taiwan in the future.

Year of Submission

1999

Degree Name

Doctor of Industrial Technology

Department

Department of Industrial Technology

First Advisor

John T. Fecik, Advisor

Second Advisor

Charles D. Johnson, Co-Advisor

Date Original

5-1999

Object Description

1 PDF file (xiv, 194 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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